Legendary Italian DJ Marco Carola presents his first studio album in nine years. Play It Loud! is a massive album about groove and bass lines, a playground of drums and colorful beat textures and vocal snippets. In all his years of being a certified veteran in the world of techno -- from his beginning days in Napoli in the early '90s to his celebrated status around the world today -- Carola never once lost grip on his main priority: letting the music speak for itself. Carola retains a rare sense of integrity, despite being an artist who has consistently changed the face of techno. On Play It Loud! he embraces an entirely new expansion of sounds, concepts and formats. The album is not a collection of individual singles (as unique as each may be). True to form, and an encapsulation of his incomparable expertise, the artist "born as a DJ" opted to blend all 10 previously-unreleased tracks to form one tight-knit, seamless mix. In keeping with a typical Carola DJ set, the album has a divine ability to morph and shift, bleed and punch between beats and grooves so smoothly, it's impossible to hear when one track ends and the other begins. Play It Loud! kicks off with no restrictions, and certainly no hesitation. Jittering, building drums in the album's "Intro" quickly construct the heavier bass-laden groove of "The Jingle," a sonic reverie filled with a vast space of percussive layers and stuttering vocals. Sharp rhythms interlock through the divine unfolding of his mix into "Magic Tribe," a playground of drums and colorful beat textures. The groove never loses its hold through the gripping twists and turns of "Kimbo," and liquidly bounces through the shuffling bass line of his masterful "Lighthouse," where around each loop lies a surprising new rhythmic element. "The Black Box" feels exactly as it sounds, teasing and throbbing with dynamic climbs into a soundworld immersed in shadows, leading into the intricate subtleties of breathy vocal hints and hand claps in "The Tool." Melodies slowly emerge and begin to take shape through the aptly-titled "Suspense," raising the energy to meet stomping bass weight through the wide-eyed entertainment of "One Man Show." The album, after taking the listener to all corners and colors of the electronic spectrum, kicks into its final chapter on the all-out club-shattering closer "Freak On." From start to finish, so many layers and beautifully subtle intricacies are hidden and tucked inside of the LP's many narratives, if you're not listening close enough -- or loud enough -- you may miss them completely.